Drake Chronicles: 02 Blood Feud (18 page)

So she would survive.

However much she might want otherwise.

It was the end of February and the streets were slick with rain and cold, the smoke clinging in doorways. The fire raged, as hungry as the rioters. Isabeau crept closer, closed her eyes at the feel of the warmth on her face. She didn’t move back until a rafter broke and hung over the al ey, dropping burning wattle and wood. Her hands felt warm for the first time in a month.

Even with the burn on her thumb it was worth it.

She was jostled aside. More water arced into the flames and they sputtered indignantly. It wasn’t long before the
patisserie
was a pile of smoldering embers, the dark-haired owner yel ing obscenities from across the street.

When the
gendarmes
arrived, Isabeau slunk away. It hadn’t taken her long to learn to avoid anyone in power: police, a magistrate, even the night watchman who sat under a streetlight and drank wine until he fel asleep, snoring into his chest. The urchins liked to set spiders on his hair and run away giggling.

She hauled herself back up onto a nearby roof and flattened herself down, staying out of sight. She tucked her fingers into the frayed cuffs of her shirt. It was safe up here, quiet. There were only pigeons to contend with and the odd skinny cat. She could walk along the roofline from one end of town to the other, as long as she took care to avoid the poorer sections where the roof might give out altogether. She could eavesdrop on the revolutionaries shouting amiably at each other in the cafe and the beat of the drums from La Place de la Concorde when another prisoner was dragged up to the guil otine. She couldn’t stand to watch the executions; just listening to the crowds chanting and those drums made her il .

A few hours later when her stomach was grumbling louder than the quashed rioters, she slid down a spout and landed nimbly in an al ey that stunk of urine and rose water. Once the sun went down, the prostitutes would lounge at the corner, winking at the men. She had an hour yet before it was dark enough that she had to find a rooftop.

She hunched her shoulders and kept her eyes on the ground as she turned onto the crowded pavement. Horses trundled past, their hooves clicking loudly on the stones. Someone had set a fire to blazing in a iron cauldron outside a cafe. She slowed her pace, casting a surreptitious glance at the abandoned plates for uneaten food. One of the servers glowered, flicking his fingers at her. She’d become an unwashed, faceless street urchin who drove away customers. It seemed like ages ago that she been choosing brocade for a new gown and wondering when she was going to be betrothed, and to whom and if he would be kind and stil have al his own teeth. Now she smel ed like dirt and mildewed roof shingles.

She grimaced.

“Such a face on such a pretty girl.”

Isabeau froze, then hunched her shoulders more.

“You’l never pass for a boy if you keep walking like that,
chouette.
”

Isabeau turned her head slightly. The prostitute smiled at her.

One of her teeth was missing and her cheeks were rouged enough to resemble apples.

“I don’t know what you mean,” Isabeau said as hoarsely as she could. She spit on the ground for good measure and only barely avoided her own foot.

“Better,” the prostitute approved. “But you need to take bigger steps, as if you’re ready to fight anyone who gets in your way.”

“I don’t want to fight,” she protested, alarmed.

“And you won’t have to if everyone thinks you want to.”

“I’m not sure that makes sense.”

She grinned. “Sense doesn’t have a lot to do with being a man.” Her bosom was dangerously close to spil ing right out of her stained corset. Her long skirt was tucked up to her hip, showing stockings with several runs and a sturdy, sensible pair of boots. The contradiction made Isabeau blink. “My name’s Cerise,” the woman introduced herself.

“I’m … Arnaud.”

“Not a bad name,” Cerise said. “But you might do better with something more common, like Alain.”

“Oh.” She couldn’t believe she was spitting and talking to a prostitute. The old Isabeau would have sniffed a lace handkerchief soaked in lavender oil to cover the scents of this place if she’d ridden by in her family carriage. She wouldn’t even have noticed Cerise with her cold-chapped hands and frizzy hair. Isabeau shivered when the wind sliced around the corner.

“You need a coat.”

“You need a coat.”

She shrugged. “I’m al right.” She clamped her back teeth together so they wouldn’t chatter.

“Mmm-hmmm,” Cerise said dryly. “If you fol ow the cart down to the river, that’s where they dump the bodies after executions.” Isabeau swal owed thickly. Cerise patted her shoulder. “It’s better than freezing to death.”

Isabeau wasn’t convinced, but she’d been raised to be polite.

“Thank you,” she replied cautiously.

“If you go now, you might catch it before it’s picked clean.” Isabeau nodded and pul ed her col ar up to cover the back of her neck.

“And
cherie
?” Cerise cal ed after her. “Stay away from the cafe at the end of the street. It’s not safe for young girls
or
young boys.”

“Thank you,” she said again. This time it was more heartfelt.

She found herself walking down to the river, even though the thought of robbing a decapitated body made bile rise in the back of her throat. The truth was, she didn’t have a single coin to her name and nothing worth sel ing aside from a scrap of silk from her mother’s favorite gown. It probably wasn’t enough to buy her a meal and she wouldn’t have sold it regardless. It was al she had left of her parents, her home, and her real life.

She spotted the cart a few streets over, wheels creaking as it rumbled down toward the Seine. Most of the shopkeepers didn’t even bother looking up from their work. Children and dogs chased after it singing a song Isabeau had never heard before. It sounded like an old lul aby but the words were obscene. The cart jerked over a broken cobblestone and an arm flopped over the side. Isabeau gagged but somehow kept walking. The rain started to fal fitful y, more like ice pel ets than a gentle spring shower. It was stil winter. She shivered violently, tried to tel herself that her shirt was thick enough to keep her warm, she just had to get used to the cold. She was soft, too accustomed to fireplaces and hot stew and mul ed wine at any hour of the day or night.

The river moved sluggishly, as if it were too cold to do its work as wel . She knew mil wheels would be creaking farther down the flow, in the vil ages. There’d been a wheel just like it near her parents’ country house. Here the river was muddy and ordered with a broken stone wal .

Isabeau wasn’t the only one easing out of the al eys as the cart stopped at the bank. She tried to tel herself to turn around and find herself a hidden rooftop where she could warm her hands in the smoke out of the chimney. Instead, she watched, frozen, as the two men began tossing severed heads into the river. Blood dripped into the dirt under the cart wheels. Bodies were rol ed down into the gray water. There were half a dozen of them. Then the men got back up onto the cattle cart and urged the horse into a walk.

Isabeau leaped over the wal and crept along its broken stones like rotten teeth, keeping low. A head bobbed in the icy water, spinning to grimace at her with a grotesque leer. She stuffed her fist into her mouth to keep from screaming. She felt light-headed, as if she wasn’t in her body. She watched herself approach a headless corpse caught on the bank and turn it approach a headless corpse caught on the bank and turn it over. It had been a man once, slender enough that his coat would fit her. It was dark gray and wool, already missing al its buttons. There was only a smal tear in one shoulder and it was relatively free of blood. The scarf he was wearing had sopped most of it up.

She couldn’t think of it. She could only keep moving, like a marionette, aware only of the frigid wind and the way her fingernails were turning blue with cold. The other bodies were being picked over by a gang of young boys and a girl no older than five who kept demanding something shiny. She had to be quick. She yanked and pul ed until the coat was free, tears freezing in her eyelashes. She slipped it on and then ran back into the al eys, stopping only to retch in a dark corner before hauling herself up onto a roof.

The sun sank slowly, bleeding red and purple light over the city.

•

By the time spring unfurled its tender green buds on al the treetops, Isabeau had learned the layout of the streets, and thanks to Cerise, which neighborhoods to avoid altogether, even in daylight. She’d found a jar of olives packed in oil and spinach leaves left over at the market. They were only a little bit trampled and reminded her of the spinach and garlic sauce Cook used to make for special occasions. She ate them with her fingers, crouched on the roof of a bookshop. She’d stopped seeing the bodies on the riverbank every time she closed her eyes and was grateful for the warmth of the coat when the rains started.

She saved the last few olives and tucked the jar in her pocket, swinging down to the ground. If there had been a carnival around, she liked to think she could have been an acrobat or a tightrope walker. She gave wide berth to a cafe known for its political squabbles and ducked under a creaking sign of an apothecary. The chain had snapped in last night’s storm and the sign was swinging drunkenly, banging into the wooden frame around the window. She found Cerise leaning out of the window of the room she shared with five other prostitutes.

“Fancy a go,
citoyen
?” A thin woman with bruises on her arms smiled at her. Isabeau took a startled step backward.

“Never mind him, Francine,” Cerise cal ed down. “He’s here for me.”

“You get al the clean pretty ones.” Francine pouted, wandering away.

Isabeau was embarrassed right down to her toes. Cerise laughed loudly.

“I forget how young you are sometimes,” she said.

Isabeau made a face at her and used the sagging counter of a fishmonger’s to boost herself up to Cerise’s porch. It was more of a wooden ledge outside a broken window than an actual proper porch, but it did the trick.

“What did you bring me this time?” Cerise asked eagerly. Her roommates were snoring loudly in the darkened room behind them. She looked tired, the lines around her eyes were deeper.

Isabeau sometimes forgot she was a couple of years younger than her own mother had been when she was born. Amandine had retained a kind of childlike innocence that Cerise had likely outgrown by the time she’d lost her last baby tooth.

“Here.” Isabeau handed her the olives.

Cerise clutched it. “I haven’t had olives in weeks.”

“I’ve got something even better,” Isabeau assured her, fishing out another treasure from her inside pocket, wrapped in old butcher’s paper. She’d stolen it from the back garden of a fancy townhouse a street away from her parents’ old house.

Cerise goggled when Isabeau pul ed the paper back. “Are those … ?”

Isabeau nodded, sliding the bundle into Cerise’s trembling fingers. “Strawberries.”

“I’ve never had strawberries before.”

“Eat them quickly or you’l have to share.” Cerise stuffed them into her mouth before her roommates could stir and ask about the sweet sugary smel . Her eyes closed as if she were eating chocolate mousse for the first time.

“Heavenly,” she declared in a soft voice. Tiny seeds stuck between her teeth.

“I knew you’d like them.” The sun was high overhead, hot for the first time since the autumn. Isabeau turned her face up to it.

“I can’t wait for summer.”

“Marc told me to tel you that they’re having a big ral y in La Place de la Concorde today.”

Place de la Concorde today.”

Isabeau looked at her hopeful y. “How big a ral y?”

“He said you could work it with your eyes closed. He’s never seen anyone with fingers as nimble as yours.” She waggled her eyebrows. “I wager he could think of better ways to occupy those dainty hands of yours.”

“Cerise!” Isabeau lowered her voice. “You didn’t tel him I’m a girl, did you?”

“No,
chouette.
He definitely thinks you’re a boy.”

“Then why would he be interested in …” She trailed off, confused.

Cerise laughed so hard she choked. “Never mind, I’l tel you later.” She wiped her eyes. “How have you survived this long?”

“Because of you,” Isabeau replied seriously.

Cerise wiped her eyes more vigorously. “You’l make me cry.”

“Why did you help me, Cerise?” Isabeau had always wanted to ask but she hadn’t wanted to frighten off the only friend she had. One didn’t ask questions in the back al eys.

“I had a daughter once,” Cerise replied, her voice so soft it was nearly drowned out by the squawk of pigeons pecking at the weeds at the side of the building. “She would have been about your age now.”

“What happened to her?”

“She caught a fever one winter when she was stil a baby. I couldn’t afford medicine. When I broke the window of the apothecary to steal some, the
gendarmes
took me off to Bastil e. She died before they let me out again.” Isabeau bit her lip. “I’m sorry.”

Cerise nodded, touched the tiny glass drop earrings she never took off. “That’s why I wear these.”

“That’s glass from the Bastil e, isn’t it?” It had become fashionable to wear rings and jewelry set with stones or glass from the Bastil e, to commemorate the storming of the jail four years earlier.

She nodded fiercely. “Yes, I was never so happy as the day we pul ed that prison apart.” She swal owed harshly, shook her head. “Enough of that now, it doesn’t do to live in the past.” She squinted at the position of the sun. “You’d best hurry if you’re going to make the square in time.”

Isabeau hauled herself up onto the roof, poked her head back down.

“What do you want today, Cerise?” she asked, forcing a note of cheer into her voice.

“A ribbon for my corset,” Cerise suggested, smiling again. It had become a game, to see what odd trinket Isabeau could find for her, once she’d finished working the crowd for more serious wares.